Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of Microsoft Windows desktop operating systems.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Development was completed on November 8, 2006, and over the following three months, it was released in stages to computer hardware and software manufacturers, business customers and retail channels. On January 30, 2007, it was released internationally and was made available for purchase and download from the Windows Marketplace; it is the first release of Windows to be made available through a digital distribution platform.[7]

New features of Windows Vista include an updated graphical user interface and visual style dubbed Aero, a new search component called Windows Search, redesigned networking, audio, print and display sub-systems, and new multimedia tools such as Windows DVD Maker. Vista aimed to increase the level of communication between machines on a home network, using peer-to-peer technology to simplify sharing files and media between computers and devices. Windows Vista included version 3.0 of the .NET Framework, allowing software developers to write applications without traditional Windows APIs. Windows Vista removed support for devices without ACPI.

While these new features and security improvements garnered positive reviews, Vista was also the target of much criticism and negative press. Criticism of Windows Vista includes its high system requirements, its more restrictive licensing terms, lack of compatibility, longer boot time, and excessive authorization prompts from User Account Control. As a result of these and other issues, Windows Vista saw initial adoption and satisfaction rates lower than Windows XP. However, Vista usage had surpassed Microsoft's pre-launch two-year-out expectations of achieving 200 million users, with an estimated 330 million Internet users in January 2009. On October 22, 2010, Microsoft ceased sales of retail copies of Windows Vista, and the original equipment manufacturer sales for Vista ceased a year later.[8] Market share of Windows Vista fell below 1% by the end of 2021, coinciding with the release of Windows 11.[9]

Official mainstream support for Vista ended on April 10, 2012, and extended support ended on April 11, 2017, while the server equivalent, Windows Server 2008, had its mainstream support ended on January 13, 2015,[10] and extended support ended on January 14, 2020.[11] Both versions were succeeded by Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, respectively. As of February 2022, 0.18% of PCs run Windows Vista.[9] Unofficial methods can apply the security updates for Server 2008 to Windows Vista, because the former has a similar architecture.[12]